Qualcomm: 9 out of 10 smartphones will be connected to the cloud by 2013

Mobile phone chipset giant Qualcomm has said that 90 per cent of all smartphone users will use some form of personal cloud by 2013. Moreover, the company forecasts that the smartphone will surpass the PC as a cloud connected device by 2014, making it the primary way of interacting with the cloud.

Speaking to Pocket-lint, Qualcomm's Innovation Centre president Rob Chandhok, described a world where "local networks are in the home and relationships in the cloud".

The idea is that the phone becomes the primary portal for interacting with your digital life, be it controlling things like washing machines or thermostats connected to the cloud through cable, or interacting with friends, photos and the rest of the cloud via your smartphone.

"The phone becomes a key control point," says Chandhok, "everything is based on proximity." Qualcomm predicts a situation in which your phone works seamlessly with other electronic devices nearby, as well as managing the rest of your life via things such as high speed LTE networks, all of which being done over the cloud.

"We want devices to react to what’s going on around you, to learn more about you, and then use it to improve your life," says Mollenkopf. "The phone looks at the environment around you" he explained, "Like a remote control for your life."

Right now, according to Qualcomm, there are more mobile phones in the world than there are toothbrushes. This means the world has been more connected than ever and with the smartphone becoming more ubiquitous, the next logical step is a vast increase in the amount of people who interact with some sort of cloud.

For developed countries with technology on the cutting edge, however, it looks as if LTE is going to be the most imminent technological leap. Qualcomm is already on its third generation of LTE chipsets, making the ultra-fast 4G mobile internet more evolved than ever and crucially less battery sapping.

By 2015 there could be a 10 times increase in mobile traffic in Europe, coupled with LTE it could see a shift towards people relying entirely on their smartphones to interact with the web, doing away with home broadband altogether. The launch of Everything Everywhere's 4G network, EE, along with a rush for competitors to launch their own, could speed up the entire process.

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